Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Over the past year, Pizza Hut has launched a strategic product line, seemingly with the sole purpose of lowering ticket sales. While this assessment may seem negative, let's closely examine what they have done with 3 products:

1. The Tuscani Pasta Line - Don't get me wrong. I love the diversity that the pasta line has brought to the PH menu. Made strictly the way Pizza Hut wants them, the Creamy Chicken Alfredo and Cheesy Mac & Bacon are outstanding. Plus, they give me a rare opportunity to use silverware. Additionally, they allow me to be creative and make different things than I normally do, such as alfredo pizzas, new marinades for wings, and other TBD recipes. But back on topic: the pasta is marketed to a family of 4 (over 3 lbs./feeds 3-4 adults), and costs $11.99 with 5 breadsticks. If everyone family of 4 orders this, we lose. Families of 4 should be ordering the Family Feast (2 med. 1 top, 5 sticks, 2 liter pop $19.99), or 2 large pizzas ($18.99 with coupon). Though the pastas are an extremely high profit item, sales are what is important to Wall Street, management, and the employees schedule.

2. Bringing back the P'Zone - A great 1400 calorie meal for one, and sometimes shared by 2. A P'Zone costs $5.99, and 2 cost $10.99. The problem with the P'Zone is that it is not an add-on or a suggestive sell (like Hershey's dunkers or 10 WingStreet wings), it is a replacement for more expensive meal items. I seldom deliver more than 2 p'zones on an order, and it is even rarer to deliver p'zones as part of large tickets.

3. The Pizza Mia - The other two items I mentioned were just a warm-up for this one. Seemingly targeted to large families, and sold at a mere $5.00 apiece, this product is attempting to change Pizza Hut's brand image to one that caters to the bottom rung. Instead of families ordering 2 larges, 10 wings, and cheesesticks for the mid-30's, the same family will now order $20 worth of this half-cheese, undertopped pizza. The real shame is that Pizza Hut allows this product to occupy its boxes. This pizza seriously makes the Hot 'N' Ready from Little Caesar's seem like something that a mom & pop shop in North Chicago would sell. This pizza has increased labor demands, over-occupied valuable oven space during peek times, and lowered average ticket prices, profits, and sales for Pizza Hut. I cringe every time somebody asks for this on the phone.

During an eight hour shift, I ring 30 doorbells, spend 6.5 hours in my vehicle, wait for traffic lights to turn green, and have a lot of time to think. These thoughts are spewed out here in paragraph form.